Neurable has built the first brain-computer interface that allows VR users to use their thoughts as a controller in virtual environments. The prototype is attached to the back of a HTC Vive headset and is capable of reading a user’s brain signals. The thoughts have to relate to specific actions ...

Polyphony Digital’s latest iteration of the Gran Turismo driving simulator made an appearance at this week’s E3 2017 in Los Angeles, and was playable using a PSVR headset, but with some significant limitations. The game is due to launch exclusively on PS4 in Fall 2017. The flagship PlayStation driving franchise ...

HP is bringing out an enterprise-focused version of its Windows ‘Mixed Reality’ VR headset in March. Called the ‘Professional Edition’, HP is pushing out basically the same headset hardware-wise save a few tweaks it considers necessary for VR-use in the workplace. As first reported by AnandTech, the HP Windows Mixed Reality ...

HTC has now published the Modigliani VR experience, The Ochre Atelier, on Viveport. As a focal point at the Modigliani exhibition currently still in rotation at Tate Modern in London, the experience takes you to the early 20th century Parisian studio of famous painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani. While Modigliani’s ‘final’ studio still exists in Paris, its ...

SKYDANCE INTERACTIVE’S AWARD-WINNING VIRTUAL REALITY GAME ‘ARCHANGEL’ IS AVAILABLE NOW ON PLAYSTATION VR Title Launches on Other Leading VR Platforms on August 2nd Skydance Interactive today debuts its first virtual reality game – award-winning first-person shooter Archangel – exclusively on PlayStation VR. Using DUALSHOCK®4 or PlayStation®Move hand controllers, players will step into the cockpit to ...

Google’s newly announced Seurat rendering tech purportedly makes use of ‘surface light-fields’ to turn high-quality CGI film assets into detailed virtual environments that can run on mobile VR hardware. The company gave Seurat to ILMxLab, the immersive entertainment division of Industrial Light and Magic, to see what they could do ...

Close Menu

Oculus’ founder Palmer Luckey, who left the company in March, recently opened up on record for the first time in an interview since September 2016.Among a range of topics discussed, Luckey spoke of the timeline of future VR headsets from major hardware players.

Luckey was a long time tinkerer of head mounted displays prior to building the first Rift prototypes which lead to him founding Oculus and taking the Rift to Kickstarter in 2012 for what would become a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign. At the time he teamed up with Brendan Iribe who would fill the company’s CEO role, and, while Luckey didn’t hold any of the company’s executive positions, he was a key figure for the company externally and an important stakeholder internally where he held an engineer-like role as he oversaw the company’s growth and eventual acquisition by Facebook in 2014.

Now outside of Oculus and Facebook, Luckey recently went on record in a series of interviews with Japanese VR publication MoguraVR—which have been translated for Road to VR—during which, among other things, he spoke about his expectation for the future of VR hardware.

Palmer Luckey, Founder of Oculus, circa 2014 | Photo courtesy Oculus

Certainly unable to reveal the specifics of what Oculus and Facebook’s forward-looking plans are, Luckey spoke generally but did offer up his expected timeline for the next generation of VR headsets, something which VR early adopters are eagerly looking forward to. Despite last week’s introduction of new VR displays from Samsung suitable for the Rift and Vive, Luckey doesn’t expect that we’ll see the launch of major hardware revisions over the next 12 months from any of the high-end headset makers already in the market (that would include the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR):

[…] There will be no big movements in [the next 12 months*]. The hardware will not change. Of course there might be hardware from new companies entering the market, but the hardware of the major players in the market will stay the same.

In that way the next 12 months will be rather uninteresting for VR users that are just waiting for the next hardware generation. It is going to be the time of content and applications. But for VR developers and enthusiasts it will still be a very exciting 12 months. I think there also will be some announcements and new prototypes.

12 months from the time of this quote would push things out to May 2018 or so.

Luckey doesn’t seem to be ruling out that we could see announcements of new hardware and maybe even a look at some prototypes within the next 12 months, but he doesn’t expect that any next-gen headsets will launch from the major players within that timeframe.